by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian

CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER JAMES ISHIHARA KILLED IN VIETNAM

On Mar. 10, 1963, Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) James Hiroshi Ishihara was killed while participating in a Marine rescue operation of a crashed OV-1 Mohawk in South Vietnam. His death followed two decades of Army counterintelligence service.

James Ishihara was born on Jul. 17, 1922 in Honolulu, Hawaii, as a second-generation Japanese American (Nisei). He volunteered for service with the U.S. Army in 1943. Like many other Nisei in the Army, Ishihara attended the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) at Camp Savage, Minnesota, and was assigned for intelligence work in the Pacific Theater in 1944. Little is known about Ishihara’s wartime service, but the majority of his MISLS class was assigned to the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section in the Southwest Pacific Area. After the war, he served with the Counter Intelligence Corps during the occupation of Korea and through the Korean War.

CWO Ishihara was a talented linguist and spoke English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. After twenty years of intelligence service, he accepted an assignment with the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam (MAAG-V), which provided military aid to South Vietnam from 1950–1964. Ishihara arrived in Vietnam in August 1962 and was assigned to the 704th Intelligence Corps Detachment (Counterintelligence), MAAG-V. He was later attached to the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 162 (HMM-162), which arrived in Vietnam in January 1963 on a four-month rotation of aerial reconnaissance flights during Operation SHUFLY.

On Mar. 10, 1963, HMM-162 was tasked with a rescue mission of an OV-1 Mohawk that had crashed the day before in the mountains west of Da Nang, South Vietnam. The Mohawk, performing electronic reconnaissance operations for the Army, was flown by Lt. Edward B. Cribb, accompanied by a South Vietnamese observer. HMM-162 was ordered to find Lieutenant Cribb, who had ejected from the aircraft prior to the crash, and secure the wreckage site. Ishihara accompanied the squadron in a UH-34D helicopter copiloted by Majs. Lenny Demko and David Webster.

After locating the wrecked Mohawk in Quang Ngai Province, the crew prepared to descend via a hoist. Due to a variety of reasons—adverse weather conditions, high altitude, high humidity, and a too-short cable for lowering rescue personnel—the helicopter dropped too low and crashed into the tree line, killing the soldier on the hoist. Although the official Marine report of the incident identified the soldier as a South Vietnamese (ARVN) ranger, the soldier was most likely James Ishihara. As an Army counterintelligence agent, CWO Ishihara would have been responsible for securing the classified materials left on the Mohawk.

The rest of the squadron survived the initial crash, but Majors Demko, Webster, and the crew chief were badly burned in the resulting explosion. A second Marine UH-34D also crashed when it attempted to rescue the HMM-162 crew. Weather and the darkness of the jungle as day turned to night forced the Marines to remain there until they could be rescued the following morning. Major Webster succumbed to his injuries during the night.

The next day, the second UH-34D, which had suffered only minor damage in the crash, was able to evacuate the HMM-162 survivors. Meanwhile, the uninjured Marines from the second helicopter continued the search for Lieutenant Cribb, eventually locating and evacuating him from the site. The Marines then secured the downed Mohawk until Army technicians could arrive to divest the plane of its advanced electronics equipment and other classified materials.

CWO Ishihara’s body was flown back to Da Nang and then returned home where he is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart Medal. Lieutenant Cribb died just a few months later during another aerial reconnaissance operation over Vietnam. Major Demko was also killed in Vietnam in 1968 while serving with squadron HMM-364.

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